NLL Insider

The year is 1989 and all your lacrosse studs are rockin’ the Brine M1 head and gloves the size of pillows. Your shorts are nowhere near long enough to reach your knees and your tube socks are sportin’ three color rings. Welcome to the lacrosse world of Toby Boucher, the No. 2 overall draft pick by the New England Blazers out of Ohio Wesleyan. Today, it’s the National Lacrosse League and Boucher was eager to look back on the days when teams like the Blazers, the Thunder, the Bulls and the Turbos were gettin’ their game on.

1. The 1989 draft had to be exciting for you.

“I spent my whole life wanting to play lacrosse so yeah, it was way cool. It wasn’t about the money, it was about playing, and playing in front of big crowds was fun.”

2. Field to box must have been quite the transition.

“Yeah, a lot of us were field players, so it was learning how to shoot on smaller goals, the checking and the fast pace. It was a lot of fun for us. I grew up playing in Rhode Island and we were not considered a hot bed. I was barely recruited out of high school and went to OWU and played under Mike Pressler for three years.”

3. You know we all want to know about the spandex.

“I actually do still have a pair. I show them to my son and he gets a good laugh about it. I didn’t have a mullet, though.”

4. Best memories of your time with the Blazers?

“We had a lot of team unity. In the 1990 season, we lost our first two games then won six straight before losing to Philadelphia in the final. We were a run and gun kind of team with no real Canadians on the team. Most of our team was American, then the Turbos and Bandits started getting Canadians.”

5. The 1990 season was quite the turnaround. What sparked that?

“The key to our turn around was that we all got along as a team … just a bunch of good guys who played hard and worked hard. We changed some of the lines around after the second loss and it seemed to work. Besides John Fay and others who were all-pros, Tommy Carmean joined the team in the middle of the season too. He was a great addition and went on to be a multiple time all-pro and all-star. We had a lot of unsung heros as well.”

6. Where were some of your favorite places to play?

“Philly and Buffalo, they were sold out half the time. We ended Buffalo’s 22-game win streak in 1994 and the crowds in Philly were always big. We just fed off that energy. Baltimore had decent crowds and Pittsburgh had decent crowds. In Boston, there was so much competition with college hockey.”

7. So what was it like in Buffalo after you guys ended the Bandits’ streak?

“It was crazy. We won the game and it ended and it ended with a 6 to 10 minute bench clearing brawl that was live on ESPN2. The good guys in Buffalo were telling me to find a guy to pair up with or you would get sucker-punched or slashed in the head. One of our guys, Todd Francis, had his head cut open by a slash … The fans pelted the old Aud with soda cups and I think some batteries were thrown at us too. We had to get a police escort to our bus after the game.”

8. Pretty amped about the revival of the Blazers?

“All the old Blazers are happy that the team kept the name. We take a lot of pride in name and how we played. I think it’s interesting that Tom Ryan, Randy Fraser and Todd Francis are all ex-Blazers and are taking a mostly ‘American’ player focus to the squad. That is very similar to how we were. It was great to see how well they did in Boston’s first year.”

Today, Boucher is living and working in San Diego, Calif., where’s been for nearly 13 years. He gives major props to his wife, who’s been with him through all of his college, pro and club lacrosse days and together they’re raising two children, a daughter who’s got an offensive set of mind for her lacrosse team and a son who is a goalie. Outside of work at EMC Corporation, he’s coaching youth and middle school lacrosse for the RC Starz and Donny Lax teams. He’s been elected to the Halls of Fame at OWU and Ohio, which provided the above picture.

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